


Hope

by DerpyPandaQueen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/F, Intersex Character, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn, Student is 18, Teacher-Student Relationship, Urban Fantasy, extremely so, hopefully also you-indulgent, i guess?? i'm not sure if that's right but far be it from me to not tap into as many tags as I can, like really eventual tho sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25542664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DerpyPandaQueen/pseuds/DerpyPandaQueen
Summary: Parvati Korrapati, a Switcher, has a new math teacher, and she's glorious. Mostly fluff with some angst I guess?(This used to be in second person, but I rewrote it in first person after a not so stellar opening reception) This is a story that has been very near to my heart for a long time, that I'm finally deciding to write. It started as me imagining what my perfect life would be when I was struggling to be happy, and it really blossomed into something so much more beautiful over time. I never expected to be able to do it justice with words, which is why it took so long to start writing, but I'm really proud of how it turned out, and I can't wait to keep writing more! Enjoy~EDIT: This is on pause for a bit while I gain more of an audience with a Rosemary alien abduction fic I’m writing.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Death of the Author

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This 1st chapter is pretty heavy but I promise it gets lighter. And then darker for a chapter, but then lighter! And it pretty much stays that way from then on. Feel free to skip this chapter if you want to get straight to the story, this is just a short lil thing for me.

For Chapter 1, this will be the author, Jade, speaking. I don't have any particular beliefs about what will happen when I die, but I have some very strong hopes. I hope that I will wake up, cured of my various mental illnesses, in front of the being that can only be described as God. I hope this God will tell me that I am free to do whatever I want, be whatever I want. 

I hope that two more figures appear in front of me. Other people, here in this place with me. They will both be women, one Indian, and one Nigerian. One named Parvati, the other named Sofia. They are beautiful and they are holding hands. I hope they won't hate me too much. I hope they will tell me that they were watching over me when I was Patrick, as the intrusive thoughts plagued me. Thoughts that I defied by imagining the bloody torture of rapists and pedophiles. 

I hope they will tell me that they were not too offended by my early, fumbling imaginations of the two women finding each other and falling in love, almost six years before this writing. I expect this only to a small degree, but perhaps my later imaginations will be so sweet as to make up for it. 

I hope more than anything that they will give me their blessing, to become Parvati in a more thorough way than most of the dead live new lives. I imagine the majority live something and come back from it, the same person they were when they died, ready to play their part in another story, again and again. I hope to go away, no more Jade, just Parvati, who will live her own lives after that, not mine. Perhaps she will still be connected to Jade's family. I hope to live the life that brought Parvati to where she stands in front of Jade, in a timefucky way only Heaven can provide. 

I hope it goes a little something like this.


	2. A Heart Stops

Bone clicks against wood as I sit, anxious, at a desk in a private school/orphanage in New York City. Carmina leans over to me, probably about to whisper at me about the same thing everyone else in the room is talking about. Carmina's my closest friend- er, at least the closest friend I have that lives in the same country as me. She was adopted several years ago, so she spends her summers at home, meaning I haven't really seen her since our friend Gabriela’s birthday a couple months ago.

"Psst, Parvati."

Parvati Korrapati. Two Indian names given to me by the Americans who work here. My parents didn't deign to give me a name, though they did bother to give me to Amoretto Academy as opposed to an alley, so you know. That's appreciated. I don't know their circumstances, and honestly, the school's pretty nice, so I usually don't really hold hard feelings towards them. Though, I do sometimes wonder if they left me because I'm a Switcher, or even because of one of my um, genetic peculiarities. 

"No, Carmina, I don't have any theories about the new teacher."

I guess I should explain what a Switcher is. Switchers make up about 11% of humans, with the same proportion for most mammal species, and have two bodies, one phased out of reality or whatever (they like to pretend they're so smart, but scientists have no fucking clue what's up with us), almost always a male body and a female body which one can Switch back and forth to at will, or even Shift a mix between the two. The school admits Switchers as well as girls. My particular genetic peculiarities (which are significantly more common in Switchers, usually in the form of missing limbs) are as follows.

  1. That I have no male body, only a totally female body and an intersex body.

  2. That I am missing the right arm of my female body.

  3. That I am missing my gag reflex.




That last one presumably didn't factor into my parent's decision, but honestly, the way I live my life, it's probably gonna be important at some point. 

"Yeah, yeah, but Jaz just told me she saw a motorcycle in the parking lot earlier! Maybe this one will at least be cooler than Blethfeld!"

I raise my eyebrows at that. Of course I'd seen it in the last few weeks, but I'd hoped it was another teacher's new toy. If this teacher is cool, then disappointing them is going to be even worse. My finger bones click against the desk a little harder. I guess I should explain that too.

As with any Switcher missing limbs, the fact that I'm missing one of my right arms lets me Shift select parts of the arm I do have into the empty space in this reality, like just the bone, or even specific parts of the bone. This lets me make a bone cell-thin claw or blade out of my arm and hand, made strong by the cells and structures still surrounding it, just somewhere else. This certainly has nothing to do with the fact that my desk in Math class is horribly scarred. 

Actually, I'm in Math class right now, which is pretty much why I'm so nervous, tapping my fingers on my desk, fleshy tips Shifted away to let my finger bones click so satisfyingly against the wood. I like to think having to teach the angriest version of the deadliest teenager in Manhattan had nothing to do with the last teacher leaving.

I continue to enjoy thinking that thought for a bit until the most beautiful woman in the world walks into the room and starts writing 'Ms. Sofia Monette' on the board. As she enters my life with a radiant chorus of angels playing in my head, I just stare at her. Skin a few shades darker than mine, hair done in finger coils, golden brown when it meets the light right, her lips plump and red. In my mind, my mouth is agape, but I hold strong in reality. Until she speaks. With a warm voice that melts me where I sit, and the lightest touch of a French accent (and isn't that so unfair?), Sofia greets the class, "So sorry to not be here early, but I'm very excited to get to meet you all,” distributing her papers across her desk. Now my mouth is open in shock, along with almost every other student I know to be sapphic in the class, and a few other students aside.

The students not rude enough to be too distracted to answer give a chorus of "Hello, Ms. Monette." After correcting a few students about the pronunciation, she goes on to go over the syllabus. I finally shut my face and try to listen, but I just can't pay attention to the words she's saying, so much as how she's saying them and the faceparts she's using to say them. I can't help but take particular notice of the 'Ms.' she wrote on the board and the carefully clipped, short nails on the fingers she used to write it. God, those fingers though. Am I... blushing? Normally I'm the one to make other girls blushy and flustered, but I feel like if she asked me a question, I wouldn't be able to stop stammering.

Eventually, something in my gay lizard brain starts paying attention when Sofia says, "I will be looking for an assistant to help me grade." My heart stops as this inspires a thought. I could apply to be her assistant, get to know her, and...

God, what a ridiculous idea. Like, of course people crush on their teachers, but no one actually goes for it, right? But... goddammit, I'm never the type to give up, and I'm not about to start now. I refuse to have any regrets about this angel of a human being. I can't just let her pass me by! But that means doing this in a way that doesn't jeopardize her job, which is basically the worst-case scenario to me. This whole situation is resting on a razor's edge, but isn't my hand made of razors? That didn't even really make sense and this is a terrible idea, but by god that's not gonna stop me!

As Sofia (yeah I've been calling her Sofia. What? It's a very nice name) describes how the year is going to go, Carmina leans over to me, whispering. "I see that look on your face, Vati. Don't tell me you're thinking of doing something THAT stupid?"

"What look? Do I look like the kind of person to do something stupid?"

"I meeean, are you seriously gonna try to fuck a teacher?"

That's not what I want with her THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I mean, I'm not about to say no if she, um. Ahem. "What? No dude, she's hot, but that would just get her in trouble. I'm not a bitch, Carmina." The lie comes easily. I've... always been a pretty good liar. I'm not especially proud of it.

"Alright, sorry. You just looked really um... determined?"

"I just don't want to look like a dumbass in front of her. I want to do better this year." 

She smiles and whispers, "Damn right! I believe in you, babe," crinkling her eyes as she says 'babe' like she knows it annoys me. Which she does. I shake my head and smile.

After taking roll and carefully studying faces to remember them better, Sofia dismisses class. Anna and another student line up in front of Sofia's desk to volunteer to be her assistant. I smile at them, knowing I hold the advantage here. When they finish, Sofia greets me. "Parvati, yes? How can I help you?" I only notice while thinking about it later, but she looks down at my necklace and smiles a little. The fact that she remembered my name is fogging my brain, so I'm a bit distracted. Oookay Parvati, turn down the 'flustered schoolgirl' dial.

"I was hoping I could apply to be your assistant, Miss. I think you'll want me." 

"Oh? And why is that?" She raises an eyebrow and I grin. 

"I have a perfect memory. I've never forgotten anything I've seen, heard or sensed any other way. I'll remember all the answer keys without having to look again, I'll remember the grades of every student, and I know every calculation I've ever done and every law and formula I've seen." 

She raises her other eyebrow to match. "That is quite impressive and useful." I beam at her, happy to hear it. "Hmm. I spoke with the previous teacher, and I don't mean to insult you, but if that’s all true, why have you had so much difficulty with Maths?" Oh. My smile falls from my face. I'd be more hurt, honestly, but her expression is of pure concern. 

Sighing, I tell her, "I guess. I just. Have trouble applying it all. A scenario that calls for a certain approach doesn't look like it does, I guess. I don't really know how to explain it. There's a lot of problems." She purses her lips, then opens her mouth. Before she can speak, I blurt, maybe a little too loud, "Actually! Oops sorry, um. I was hoping you would tutor me some? Mr. Blethfeld did. Um, for a while." She hmms again.

"I can try to fit you in, but I can't promise very much time to ourselves." 

I try not to blush again at her wording and stammer, "I-it doesn't have to be a lot! The assistant work will probably help some too." I just want to spend any time at all with you, I think.

She appears to think for a bit, before coming to a decision. "Bien. I'll take you on as my assistant as well as tutor you when I can. I really think you can excel in this class, given the right effort." A smile splits my face when she says that. 

"Thank you so much. I won't let you down. I really look forward to working with you." When she smiles back at that, my knees go weak and my heart pounds. 

"I can't wait to get to know you, Parvati. You seem like a very interesting girl." Oh, now I'm definitely blushing.

I stammer out a goodbye and walk away, glancing back after a few feet. When I see that her attention is on the papers on her desk, I keep staring until I lightly run into the door, thankfully not loud enough to draw her attention, I'm pretty sure. Thank god... Wow, that's actually impressive. She had me so distracted in there, I didn't think at all about how much it's going to suck if I fuck up in this class.

Opening the door, I see the two other students who applied to be Sofia's assistant talking in the hallway. I walk past them, pointedly not rubbing it in their faces. The new one is a Switcher. I guess they're new this year because I don't recognize them, and they're in an outwardly female form, or one of them at least. If they're trans, then they might have two or none, same as if they were one of the other dozen or so intersex Switchers predicted to live in America. But it's unlikely I'll ever meet another one like me, so I don't think that's it. Switchers just aren't born intersex very often for some reason.

Anyways, there's no outward signs other than the necklace they're wearing. It's clearly of a style that suggests it opens to reveal Verto Amber inside, a rich orange stone that prevents Switching on line of sight at close enough range. 

Switchers tend to carry some on them so as to avoid things like absentmindedly Switching while sitting in a chair that's too cheap to have Verto Amber embedded in it, thereby taking the chair with them out of this reality and falling on their ass. I wear a heart shaped necklace that was silver. When I got it, I painted it in the oranges, pinks and white of the lesbian flag in sequenced curves and swirls.

This being my last class of the day, I'm free to go to the office and get the German class I started taking this year changed to a French class. Sorry Ms. Meier, but a girl needs to have priorities. Then I head to my dorm room, which thankfully are all single-occupant after age 12. Gingerly, I close the door and start dancing around the room, eventually collapsing onto my bed, panting as I stare up at the ceiling.

'I can't wait to get to know you, Parvati. You seem like a very interesting girl.’ 

The words run through my head, again and again, as perfect as the first time. This is going to be hell, for sure. I smile the biggest smile I can remember having, thinking about hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m well aware that the new lesbian flag wasn’t made until like 10 years after this story starts, but I prefer it so I’m going to use it! I’ll try to stay as consistent as I can to the time, but I honestly don’t remember much about 2008 (because i was 9) and research is often a lot of work for little reward. I’ll do my best though! I hope you enjoyed! This is pretty much the first thing I've ever written, and I've had an unbelievable amount of fun with it! Who knew writing when you aren't forced to and actually have an idea you care about is fun? ❤️ Thank you for reading! And thank you to Ellicit: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellicit/pseuds/Ellicit for the advice in the comments and my discord!


	3. Throw Your Life Away

I start laughing at the absolutely fucking stupid thing Gavin's talking about. Barbara cackles in the background. "You cahn’t suck against... gravity 10 meters more, up...wot?” 

“HOW do you confuse your own self mid-sentence?" 

"Wot if you wot, but chu couldn't wot wot?" Barbara impersonates. 

"Alright, so what have you been learning, Parvati?" Gavin asks, face red.

"Nice transition. You know she loves talking about herself so much." 

I ignore her, saying, "Well, I don't know about learning, but... there's this girl." 

Barbara snorts and Gavin says, "There's ALWAYS a girl with you." 

I scoff. "Yeah but this girl's different! I swear, I'd throw away my whole life for a chance with her, but she's so nice I know she would never ask me to! PLUS, she's fucking French!"

"Sounds more like YOU'RE fucking French, eh? Eh?" Pungirl says. 

"Ughhhh. I don't think that's happening anytime soon." 

"What do you mean?” 

"Yeah Par, you’ve never had any problem getting trim. Is she hetero?" 

"No... I mean I don’t know yet, she really could be... it’s complicated.” 

“Well, why’s it complicated?” Barbara asks, unhelpfully not dropping the topic. “And didn’t you say there’s no exchange programs at your school?”

Fuck. I forget sometimes that other people can have good memories too. I mean, I certainly don't just remember everything I've ever experienced all at once all the time, so of course I forget stuff when I don't have a reason to remember it. Oh yeah, I have to come up with an excuse now.

“Umm like I said, it’s just complicated, okay?” 

Barbara narrows her eyes. “Parvaaaaati, how old is this 'girl'?” Gavin’s eyes widen. 

I try to be as casual as possible as I say, “Ummm, I mean she looks pretty young. For a teacher.” For some ungodly reason, Gavin decided to take a drink of water right before I said that, and he spits it out, soaking his webcam. He makes some weird bird-like noises and runs off, presumably to get a towel or something.

Barbara dryly says, “Wow, Parvati. What if he slips and dies in his state of porn plot imagination? Then it’s all on you.” She tsks, shaking her head in fake admonishment. Despite her joking tone, I frown. 

“It’s not fucking porn, Barb. These are real feelings, mostly just romantic even! I’ve barely looked at her chest at all.” I fold my arms in triumph for that trump card. At her look of disbelief, I tell her, “Her face is waaaay more interesting.” At this, she seems to believe me.

"Isn’t that illegal or something?” 

“Nope. Trust me, I’ve done so much research. It’s just really disastrous to her career if anyone finds out.” I actually shiver at the thought of that. “But that’s the absolute last thing I want.” 

“It could still happen anyways, Parvati.”

“That’s why the decision’s going to be up to her.” 

“And you know there are reasons it’s not allowed? She could seriously hurt you, emotionally and mentally.” 

I roll my eyes. “Anyone I date could do that. This is no more dangerous. Look, if I get to know her and she seems careless, mean or exploitative, I’ll stop pursuing this. But I swear to god that’s not gonna happen.” 

Before Barbara can think of another way to dissuade me, Gavin returns, smothering his webcam with a towel. Thankfully, his mic is separate from his webcam, unmolested by loud cleaning sounds. He has a lot of tech on account of his production job over in England.

Gavin still looks red. I'm pretty sure he's always had a little bit of a crush on me, even him being 2 years older, and this is certainly not helping matters. Barbara catches him up on what we talked about while he was gone. 

“Oh yeah, you really shouldn’t get involved in something like that, it could go suuuper wrong.” He winks like he doesn’t know Barbara’s also looking at her screen. 

“Jesus Gavin, I know you think it’s hot or whate-“ 

“Perish the thought! I just think the heart wants what the heart wants. It’s not like it’s illegal, right?” Barbara rolls her eyes, still looking concerned. 

I try to assuage her fears. "Hey, Barb, you know I'll be fine. I’m a big girl.” I’ve caught more bodies and broken more hearts than both of them combined, but I don’t really want to bring that up again. It's caused hurt feelings in the past.

Barbara looks maaaaybe a little bit less unhappy about the situation. “Yeah. Just be careful, please.” 

“You know me; always careful.” 

“Could you please start being careful? For this?” 

“Barb, I am more invested in this than I’ve ever been for anything in my life. Of course I’ll be careful."

We say our goodbyes and plan to chat again tomorrow before I close my laptop. I sigh, smiling. I really love those two. I met them on the Rooster Teeth site in 2006, when I was 16, Gav was 18, and Barb was 17. I had been watching Red vs Blue for a few months before realizing that there was a community site, and in short order, I found them. All of us are pretty hot shit on the site. Gavin's even pretty chatty with the RT staff, especially Burnie and Geoff. There's been talk of bringing him in for some role on RvB season 7.

I look around my room, wondering what Sofia would think of all my stuff. Would she think the XBox is childish? Maybe I could explain to her the emotional depth of some of the story based games I play, or how fucking cool it is to murder someone by falling on them with a blade from like 20 stories up. 

Would she appreciate the swirls and flowers in the leftover paint from my necklace on the walls, above my bed, or would she think it's a gaudy celebration of something she thinks doesn't need to be flaunted? I really hope not. That could get quite unpleasant, given my pride in who I am. 

I get up and walk to my bed. I wonder what she would think of the 2 vibrators I put inside my mattress, and the frequency with which I use them. Would she be impressed that I so diligently haven't thought about her while using them the... one time? No, two times I have, since I met her? I Shift my right forearm away, moving my elbow forwards so my hand will Shift back inside the mattress, and grab the bullet vibe. Switchers usually call that ‘phasing’, because I guess we’re nerds like that. I stroke it affectionately for a bit before realizing that that's weird as fuck and pull my hand back out, blushing and moving on.

I'm sure she'd be appreciative of how neat my desk is, the few papers there are being arranged quite carefully to be out of the way. Unless... it's too neat and she'd think I'm crazy or something...

FUCK. None of this matters, she's gonna like me for who I am or... or it doesn't matter. She's not worth thinking about in that case. But after the last few days working together, I think better of her than that.

We've spent 4 hours in the last 3 days talking about her plan for the school year, along with me memorizing all her notes and asking questions about them. Unfortunately, she hasn't let me look at the tests, despite my legendary smooth talking. There's a lot of it that not only do I not understand, I can't imagine ever understanding. But I'll try my best. Maybe it will be enough this time.

Hmm... I think I need to take a walk to think about this a bit better. I open my door and make my way through the student dorms, walking past the kitchen and rec room on the way. Jules looks up and waves a hand at me.

"Heyyy, Parvati! You wanna get in on this?" She gestures to what looks like a game of Bullshit her and her friends are in the middle of. 

Hawk pipes up, "C'mon Jules, you know she cheats."

I scoff. "It's not cheating if it's skill, asshole." I grin at them. "You're lucky I'm busy. I'm going on a walk through the gardens. Have fun, though."

"Aww, alright, see you."

As I make my way to the gardens, I completely neglect to remember to think any further about any sort of serious issue. Instead I just take in the flowers. Nature is always a very different experience for me than indoors. I can remember perfectly what it looked like last time I was there, and see that it's different now. The petals are new, or the flowers are positioned slightly differently, the wind blowing a little softer or harder. It's a new experience every time, which is really nice for me. Walking past the pond, I happen upon a sight far sweeter than any plant.

It's a cat!

I make an embarrassingly high pitched sound, thankful that no one is nearby. I love cats! But none of the teachers have ever really had pets, and the students aren't allowed to have big pets. It seems someone has wised up to the greatest priority of them all. The cat is a beautiful orange, and very fluffy.

I slowly approach the cat, making kissy noises. It calmly walks away from me, but I follow at the same pace. This goes on until the cat jumps into the windowsill of one of the teacher's rooms. Now they sit still, perched up on the shelf, letting me approach. I hold my hand out so they can sniff it, and the cat seems to decide they trust I, because they rub their head up against my hand. I pet it for a while, entranced until I hear a voice.

"Oh! Bonjour, Parvati." Oh my god. There she is, emerging out of some room in her suite. 

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Sofia. Er, Ms. Monette." 

"It's perfectly fine, dear." She smiles. "And feel free to call me Sofia when we're not in class." 

"OK. Um, I really didn't mean to intrude..." 

"C'est bon. Don't worry about it. If my little Soleil saw fit to bring you here, who am I to judge?" 

"Soleil? Is that a boy's name...?" She nods. "I'm surprised he let me pet him so readily." 

"Oh he's cautious around men, but he loves girls. Isn't that right my little sunshine? Just like mommy, yes you are, yes you are."

She coos at him as my heart soars, dancing among angels, flirting with them like only my heart would dare. I have to remind it of who it should be focusing on, reaching up to drag it back down to earth. Um, metaphorically.

"Ohh, you like girls too? I mean, um, so do I. Um, but you probably knew that." Wow, what the fuck was that? Anyways, I reach up to show her my necklace, painted in two shades each of orange and pink, with a white curve down the middle, lines swirling in sequence.

"I noticed! It's beautiful work. Did you do the paint?" At I smile and nod, she says, "I love it. Even the lines aren't straight." 

"Hah! I was really proud of it... thank you for saying so." 

She smiles, saying, "Of course."

While petting Soleil, she glances up at me and says, "At the risk of turning this into business, I wanted to tell you that we will have our first assignment today. We'll grade them together tomorrow afternoon, if that's alright? I know it's a Saturday." 

"Oh, yeah, that sounds fine. I've only got cross country practice earlier in the day." The first few assignments look easy, but holy shit, it looks like it's gonna be a nightmare down the road.

"I'll let you know about assignments farther in advance from now on."

I nod. “Well, thank you for letting me pet Soleil, but I should go. See you in class, Ms... Sofia.” 

“It was nice to see you,” she says, smiling.

Fuuuuuck, I've got it bad. I turn to leave, quite reluctantly. I return to my walk through the gardens. I remember now that I came out here to think about some actually important stuff, but I seriously don't want to think about how good I'm not going to be at math, so I turn my mind to something different. Should I actually be doing this? I could seriously fuck up her life if this goes badly.

...

Fuck.

There can't be any harm in just... waiting, right? making sure she knows how I feel, and seeing how she feels in return? Yeah. Yeahhhhh, that's what I'll do. I'll just wait for her move.

And so I wait.


End file.
